Guild Wars 2

Stephen ClarkeWillson.1802:

This is great information. The DC’s are a different problem (still important of course).

Thanks for staying on top of this.

FYI, in Tier 1 BGBL, entire map is lagging/teleporting. Guildies reporting a few dc’ed. Map is queued.

On our server, one of the most infamous troll/griefer since 2012, looks to have finally been banned.

With great power, comes great responsibility. Thank you GMs. Keep up the good work.

Is it me or did ANET miss an opportunity to bring back confusion to specter AA. I mean, torment is nice and all, but we have that on Sp #2. If AA would add 2s, 2s, 3s confusion instead, it would be more in line with Mesmer’s overall identity.

Do not rage, Never Rage on players. There are engagements that will always go bad, you can’t win 100% of the time. I immediate lose respect of a commander when that happens.

Also, if you play warrior/guardian on full sentinel. Your teammates are not going to out sustain you. Don’t ever lose perspective.

Manuhell.2759:

Decreasing healing is the whole point of applying poison, though. Such a trait would basically make it useless.
Would likely make the trait too strong. It is just an adept trait after all.

Pretty much the thread there.

Beside, if you use mantra, you get 2 charges. First one is poisoned, but second one is fine. If you have more than 4 condi on your Mesmer at that moment, you’ve got bigger problems to worry about.

Atherakhia.4086:

The issue I have is more related to the fact that we swap to GS to reposition and we’re stuck in it for 10 seconds doing nothing so it’s not a good ‘kiting’ skill. If we use it to engage and Maul isn’t enough to finish the target off, we’re again stuck in a weapon with poor damage and poor trait support because of how large an investment the longbow needs just to become remotely effective.

What I’m really after is a trait to reduce the cooldown on weapon swap like Warriors have. You can even attach it to quick draw and make it require a bow in one hand to really limit its use (since we would then lose nearly all condi clear and things like enemy cripples and immobilize would counter the range advantage it represents).

Go into GS as soon as your kiting advantages comes to an end. Engage with AA, #2 and defend with #4, #5. Don’t for get pet’s F2 as well. Then swoop away with 2~3s left on swap. Use GS#3 strictly as escape, even though it has good dmg/leap finisher. This would provide better kiting if your primary is LB.

Rangers don’t need to be more like Warriors.

evilapprentice.6379:

crouze.3078:

what other skills do you want to use to kill something?
s/p you have your auto attacks for damage. Pistol Whip doesn’t deal that much more damage
d/p you use heartseeker / backstab (3 initiative). so you could still use blackpowder + heartseeker every 9 seconds.

Reducing the duration to 2 seconds wouldn’t make it completely useless. I think it would increase the build variety we see on thieves.

Why yes of course, I forgot that IS, head shot,Unload,pistol whip and shadowshot have absolutely no value.

You also forgot to address how BP does not actually stop anyone from Meleeing you (since they can stand outside the circle and hit you regardless where you stand in it).

Unless of course you’re talking PvE, and in that case, who cares? PvE content is designed to be completed by almost anyone (That’s the draw of it). If it was really that detrimental to PvE, they could have split it like they have other skills – there’s no reason to make it awful in PvP because mobs are coded to stand in AoEs.

That’s really a biased defense I keep hearing repeated. Yes, technically, you can be on the edge of the circle to land damage inside the BP, but no Thief would just sit there and take it. I mean, my immediate response would be to #2 stealth away and send opponent into fight or flight panic mode. Besides it’s hard enough to keep track of all damages flying in and out, not to mention to make sure you’re on the edge of the circle and not too close.

I agree with OP, the nerf is probably warranted. Another example, would be Hammer Warriors’s F1/#4 combo, either they are blinded on BP shot, or blinded jumping into the field, and follow up with their second skill are blinded too. However, I’d admit it’s at least half luck and half skill to anticipate that. This would go for any melee combo. A tally of 6 ini cost, 4 ini on regen while in field. For 2 ini cost, or 2s cooldown , I could mitigate nearly all melee attacks and condi.

And it’s sure as hell broken OP in PvE play.

The only issue I have about Thief mobility is the cast times on Steal, and chain on Infiltrator Return.

Since I main Mesmer, steal gives Thieves “consume plasma” probably one of the strongest skill in the game hands down. I can only anticipate it when I catch the Thief coming at me from the corner of my screen. It is extremely difficult to avoid. A nice cast animation, like the Hide In Shadow heal would be nice to give me a chance.

Infiltrator’s Return is the 2nd part of chain on Infiltrator Strike. Already powerful to escape stun/daze/immobile, what really kills me is the 15s duration. Heck, even portal, when opened to port, only has 10s activation window. I feel the 15s gives Thieves too much escape when they got outplayed on their burst. Reducing it to 10s would do wonders in terms of risk and reward, engage or disengage in smart Thief play.

I’ll tell you a more likely nerf.

The freaking beetles at Dry Top. Damage only if facing. Wow, never seen so many 0dmg floaters from my Phantasms. I can’t control which way my phantasm approaches =(

Oh yeah, and 9k dmg on me when I go melee to attempt sword#2 face tank.

Shatter is better for sPvP since the enemy tends to stay on point, a very small location. In WvW, Shatter is very hard to land as the battle is not at a fixed location. You’re almost required to burn a stun/iLeap to lock opponent in place. Plus conditions are stronger in WvW thanks to food, without Mender’s Purity I feel naked out there, which is locked out if you go Shatter build.

I don’t think Shatter is worth the time and effort in WvW.

Once stealthed there is no target to locate, and there is no tells to what to prepare for. The skill floor playing against a Thief is very high, but not much creeping after that. It requires you routinely play a Thief and die to them many times before you know what best to do.

Also, if you run Ranger LB or Mesmer, your skills by default need a target, fighting a Thief is a losing battle with those weapons/skills 9 out 10 time. Disengage immediately.

Personally, I wish stealth was redesigned and Thief reworked.

Wyrden.4713:

Prysin.8542:

Wyrden.4713:

5 spirit ranger, hyna pet, hyna pet summon, pirate rune, 2 summoning sigils, there u go

dun forget ogre whistle. Just for the heck of it.

mortar kit, seed turret, fire elemental powder

thats about it i guess?

Just wait, I heard the new patch will give Rangers Phantasm too!

Napalm Cat Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNArfWl0npRtlpxBNcrNyqxY6W2ZlTtUpvI7AA-TViAABJcgAgZ/BAOEAyoPIMlfnq+zGPBA2UCy9JAIAACghO0hO0hO0m5Qn5Qn5QLFAETjA-w

I thought everyone was expecting this nerf anyways. What’s the upset about?

Black Box.9312:

I’m running a power interrupt build with my only stealth being mass invis for when my party needs it, and I’m doing just fine with small scale roaming.

Not to say that I disagree with the notion for more build variety on mesmer, but PU isn’t the ONLY viable option.

I agree. I don’t run PU on some misguided sense of no honor in cheese xD

Just letting people understand Mes frustration.

Weez.6315:

theres no problem with mesmer stealth! only with the PU trait so nerf that one.
Id love to see Phantasms just despawning after one attack and a short time ( enough time to use them for shatter etc) Theres no place for AI only builds!

Nerf the PU build, and I agree as a Memser it is warranted. But tell me, what else can a Mesmer run then?

Buff before nerf pls.

Straegen.2938:

I find it a rather simple and straight forward solution to WvW population attrition. Rather than server mergers teaming up seems a fairly reasonable solution. It could even help balance the fighting out a little bit pairing the stronger server in a tier with the weaker one in the other. It would also shake up the matches a little. They could team T2 with T7 one week, T8 another and even T6 in another.

I would certainly be open to it for a few matches at least.

Yup, that was the ultimate goal I was hoping for. Doesn’t even have to be extreme pairs. Could be T1 + T5 then T2+T6, etc etc.

Think about it this way, two years, Tier 1 in NA probably never player servers from Tier 8. I don’t think JQ has played any, and TC hasn’t ever played ET. I mean, that just waste of server diversity. Since MegaServer is already here, all the change that needs to happen is to group entire server into a Shadow Guild. Then you can use the Mega tech to put them on the same map. Make the cost of pairing to any other server infinitely costly, and implemented. Ok, maybe got a bit technical xD

DaMikenatr.7041:

In regards to having allies, I really don’t see that working out. At least not in the form of T1 getting paired with T8. The difference in guild size alone being the main factor. That is not to say that T8 can’t compete with T1, but by now everyone should hopefully realize that this is a numbers game all the way through, so at the end of the day you would still have T1 guilds fighting T1 guilds and T8 guilds fighting T8 guilds. Also, but combining 2 servers that already have coverage issues, but not reducing the number of playable maps, I imagine there would be even more PvD than there currently is.

While its a numbers game, its just as much coverage game. The idea is to have coverage balance in WvW. Right now, Tier 1 is shaping into one server playst PPT week 1, second server plays PPT week 2, and third server plays PPT week 3. Everyone is avoiding everyone, and are too intimately familiar with each others coverage gap. Keep Mist Ally’s name hidden. So enemy wont know who else they are facing. But you make a good point on maps. Perhaps, 3 BL + 2 different EBGs? These can be tweaked.

In regards to Supreme Siegerazer, I could see that working fine for servers that are capable of bunkering down in keeps, but a lot of times there’s only a small number of defenders at certain hours that are already vastly outnumbered by attackers to begin with, so that feels rather unfair.

This comes from playing Tier 1, the amount of siege some server put on the waypoint keep is just ridiculous. It takes sometimes days, if not the whole week just to break 1 waypoint keep. Unless ANET reduced 50 AoE cap on siege, there is very little you can do assaulting a WP keep in Tier 1. Hopefully, by require 40 players to activate Siegerazor, either you’re already going to K-train/PvD so it doesn’t matter, or it can finally give some help to threatening the keep.

Finally, I don’t really know what to think about Special Ops. It just seems like things you should normally doing in the first place. Apart from the popping orange swords though, it does sound like you’re aiming for the “split the zerg” mentality which I can back up. These are just my opinions from someone who spent a lot of time near the bottom of the tiers and is now fighting in the middle.

This was kinda of to address what you talked about first of Tier 8 still fighting only Tier 8. These map wide missions, would encourage you to play in the Mist Ally’s map. Encouraging more cooperation between allies and more use of tactics from a game design perspective, instead of relying on TS/Mumble. It’s a lot easier to rally people to a big orange circle at a camp, then telling them what to do.

Two years has passed, while GW2 is still going strong, naturally competitors will come up with other games and players will leave. “Dead time zone” are seen even in Tier 1 play. Some blame MegaServers, killing the server identity we used to fight for. However, instead of reverting back to the old ways, may I suggest a new path we can forge.

“Mist Allies”

After two years of fighting mist invaders, the Durmand Priory has discovered allies in the mist! Each week, your server will be paired up with another server from a different tier. For example, each Tier 1 BG/JQ/TC would be randomly paired up with one Tier 8 EB/AR/ET. That’s right, now there are total of 8 maps you may go to fight in. 3 BL + EBG of your server, as well as 3BL + EBG of mist ally.

“Supreme Siegerazor”

The Vigil has organized supplies and logistics in your home borderland to enable Supreme Siegerazor to be mobile in WvW. Whenever an enemy upgrades a Waypointed Keep, Supreme Siegerazor has a chance to spawn as long as you hold your Garrison. 20 of your server as well as 20 Mist Allies, must both be presented to activate him, and he will lead a frontal assault on the enemy waypoint keep.

“Special Ops”

Talking to Order of Whisper agent, you can initiate some map wide special ops. For example, simultaneously taking two different camps with your server and ally server focusing on different ones, will result in instant supply replenish for all players that capped. Another would be ninja capping a tower while your team is creating oranges swords elsewhere would give the ninja’ed tower instant 200/100 supplies. You can then upgrade walls without yaks.

…

I think with the change in population of WvW landscape and MegaServer technology, this would be a great addition to WvW to ensure healthy long term viability of WvW. Of course, many different metrics can be used to balance Tier matching. WvW must evolve to keep all players engaged.

Hitman.5829:

I have read many post complaining about warrior passive “healing” yet nobody complains about the mezmer passive damage AND healing. There is a build where the Mezmer can:

• receive up to 30 seconds of “regeneration”
• Spam clones/phantasms non stop
• deal direct damage / passive damage/ AND condition damage.
• Can cure conditions non stop thanks to mantra healing
• can remain in stealth for long time.

All these in just ONE SINGLE build. I believe this build is called PU i heard some one saying that.

Passive play needs to be tone down for Mezmers.

I’ll make a serious reply.

Hitman, it sounds like your ran into a Phantasm build Mesmer using torch, not PU. Many are joking here since it is well known that this build cannot excel in tPvP play and is only passable in Hot Join against newer players. As long as you kill the Phantasm in 2 hits (or 1 hit on crit), the Mesmer is open and extremely vulnerable for the next 16s before he can summon again.

It is not a hard build to counter, and even easier if you are running next to a teammate with any form of AoE.

Finally, if you saw more than 30s regen, that just means you did not kill any phantasm and allowed the Mesmer to sit still for nearly 20s. That’s the only way he can obtain 30s regen. An unacceptable performance for any PvP play.

Two ways to fix the iLeap problem. Change the tool tip to be more accurate of what the skill does, which ANET has been doing a lot of recently; or nerf it to match the launch day tool tip written 2 years ago.

The latter was chosen. It was another sad day for Mesmers.

Fay.2357:

Usually the iZerker will hit 3 or 4 times, but it can do less. Moving targets can cause this sometimes, if they’re moving into the whirl. It’s not super common, but it does happen.

Yup. On the flip side, if your opponent is pinned closes to a wall you can land all 4 iZerker hits. I feel like winning the lottery every time that happens XD

Veruah.5302:

Just curious, but why don’t you have a condi removal skill? I always thought Disenchanter/Null Field/Mantra had a place in shatter builds.

I’m guessing OP took Decoy, Mirror Image, and Blink, which is a good set for shatter.

Null field is bad for just cleansing condi, I only run it (or Feeback) when I use staff for the Chaos Armor bonus.

I’m not going to necro the the post, but a while ago, ANET ask us on our opinion about WvW’s future. Would we want (i) more involved feedback and small incremental changes, or (ii) let the team work and focus on it addressing the big picture in adjusting the fundamentals of WvW.

The forum here voted overwhelmingly for the latter. I think that also implied that ANET would not be able to have time to tell us what’s going on until they are sure of it being release. Heck, most game development doesn’t tell you the details until they have beta servers up and running. I think something similar applies here.

Does anyone else remember that post? ANET gave us a great game in GW2, here’s to hoping new adventures will come to the mist in due time.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

It would be a good thing to make DPS builds only have acces to dazes/stuns, weakness, vulnerability, cripples, fear and chills
And It would be good to make condition builds have acces to bleeds, poison, fire, confusion, terror and torment additionally

I support this suggestion.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

I use sword+focus/GS with 6/6/0/0/2 to maximize my own damage. When I’m dealing with mobs (eg. Foulbear’s minions) I use gs+shatter to tag a bit more. I also use focus to pull mobs together then use iWarden against veteran or mobs with highest hp (or just shatter that iWarden if he misbehaves like a bad boy).

Or something like this ?

You get GS#2 and GS#4 to tag on different mobs, follow up with GS#3 just to make sure tagged; then close in with Sw#2, F#5 on two different mobs. Hopefully AoE fire/torment sigil tags enough.

Reduced blink so you get to mobs faster.

Heal/Condi mantra since all the new open world bosses put condis on you.

But even if you solo. Just randomly party with someone. Your chance of tagging goes way up.

PvE (open world) gear zerker and staff #3 hits like a truck against bosses that have a bunch of condi on them. I was having some fun doing it in Dry Top.

PvE (dungeons) PUGs wont mind, but any Fast/Exp group is going to frown upon you. Sword/Sword is what you should be running, discard staff before entering dungeon.

WvW (zerging), Staff allows you to AoE tag and #2 skill get you out of the way of enemy zerg trains. However, you’re not helping the zerg much. Only consider staff if professional veil bot.

WvW (group roaming) Staff is decent here. Use #4 skill when focused and get teammates to peel for you. #5 works great in small encounters. However, it should not be your primary weapon

WvW or sPvP (1v1) Staff can work as primary in 1v1 situations. Your clones will add bleeds/burns/vuln to opponent and you can just hide among them. Traited with DD, each clone death causes just as much harm.

Common builds include

0/5/5/0/4 and 0/4/4/0/6 with Rabid gear.
Key traits: Deceptive Evasion, Debilitating Dissipation, Chaotic Dampening, Illusionary Elasticity.

Other builds as extension from above.

2/4/4/0/4 and 0/4/6/0/4 Rabid gear.
Same key traits. Some like Cripple Dissipation in the Domination line, some like Bountiful interruption in the Chaos line. Depends on your preference within Staff playstyle.

The band-aid fix would be to use Knights amulet and Melandru runes. This would provide you with 2900 armor to survive bursts as well as reduced conditions. The Thief burst is coming, so you’ve got to survive it first.

Now, looking at your build links, they seem to rely on phantasms and cleansing to conditions. If you would like to run something more in line with the meta phantasm build. How about tweaking your build like this?

Link to build

Traits 4/4/0/6/0, moving 4 points away from Illusions line into Inspiration to get the grandmaster minor trait +15% phantasm dmg as well as 20% phantasm hp. This would pay off better than Phantasm Haste. Last trait is open.

Change to Mantra of Recovery for 2+2 condition clears (and optionally trait Inspiration X – Restorative Mantras for 8,000 hp heal). This should address conditions.

Equipping Blink and Decoy gives you 2 stun breakers to deal with Thief dazes and venom.

Your want to pump out 2 phantasm quickly when encountering the Thief. iZerker has some good CC, but really it’s the iDuelist that shines here since his channel attack can serve to track stealth Thieves. If you can get 3 iDuelist up, just use Blurred Frenzy for defense when attacked and the Thief is going to have a bad day.

Pistol #5 serves as a great interrupt when you see or think he’s about to go into stealth. Nothing makes a Thief panic than throwing him off his stealth routine. Save your GS #5 so it can be immediate available if Shadow Refuge is used. Blink to the edge and hit him with the wave. Done correctly, that’s almost a death sentence to Thieves.

Once you get comfortable with this build, you want to replace the runes to Power based ones, and finally replace the Knight’s ammy to Zerker.

Final tips, never stand in Black Powder, never use dodge when he is stealthed, create distance when he stealth or SR, get used to immediate turning of camera to avoid his flank/back stab bonuses.

However, remember this, a good Thief vs. a good Mesmer, usually means the Mesmer will lose. That’s just the current state of things.

sirrealist.1360:

When is this patch supposed to drop?

Anytime from next week to October. ANET decided to randomly YOLO on which class gets discussed each time.

clipnotdone.9634:

Welp, we tried.

RIP

(Nerf bat hits you for 999,999 damge)

We did good , did we? (cough blood)

Posting here to raise awareness. There was no denial, no anger from any classes. We just plead for a bit of relevancy. The devs … they … they at least noticed us, right? (cough more blood)

Tell me, was this mesmer life worth anything? Are we fools?

UndeadCorp.2198:

With 10 players defending against 60, they didnt even make siege. They forced their way in with ranged skills, while we had 4 ac, 3 cats, 1 treb to try to counter. Fat use any of that did. And yes, the tower was T3.

That is true. Hopefully, this extra point system would have secondary effects, keeping population dominate server on their toes are their “tasty” Tier 3 keep is being eyed by 2 servers constantly.

Killface.1896:

It fine as it is,weaker server just need to play smart and have good def so stronger server will not focus on them and push with them when they attack there rival server.

Papper towers are always attacked the most so siege up your towers and try to get them to T3

I agree with your advice. What I am suggestion is building upon that.

Right now, it is predictable how a map politics would work. Even sometime hiding golems, just waiting for the home team hit paper keep, and we go on water gate golem rush. By having this extra dimension, it would greatly levitate the bad 2v1, and make map politics more dynamic. Sure, Hills is still paper, but the enemies might be gunning for your Tier 2 spawn tower that has accumulated an extra 500 points so far. Does the commander bet on them gong Hills, or does he take the swing the zerg by spawn just to do some patrolling? I think it would be very interesting impact.

There have been several posts already, but this is a bit reflection on BG/JQ/TC matchup this week. The map politics of 2v1 is what keeps WvW alive and interesting. However,

2v1 is BROKEN.

To ensure balanced matchups, common sense would dictate the ideal 2v1 being (Weak+Weak) vs. (Strong). In reality, once a server starts to control the lead in points, the weaker two will dice each other for 2nd place, and this is only exacerbated in tournament play. Due to the fact that all objectives are same points, a smart commander would go after the weaker server to gain points. There is no incentive for 2nd/3rd place server to go after 1st place. Consequently, this leads to many bad 2v1 situations. Meaning it’s always going to be (Strong+Weak) vs. (Weak).

Here’s how to fix it.

New Rule: The longer an objective is held, it accumulates extra server point. Which server flips the objective will get these accumulated server points (can worth up to 1000 points, something attractive).

What this means is the longer you can defend an objective, the more attractive it is for the other 2 to want to take it. This actually appropriately gives value to difficulty of an objective. For example, it used to be a cmd would take Tier 1 paper Hills, but since it just flipped, there is no accumulated points. Instead, that Tier 3 Garrison would provide a 1000 point bonus. But that ain’t easy and WvW veterans know how hard it can be to take on a waypointed keep. Finally, a real incentive for taking on such a difficult objective, your team is actually awarded.

Accumulated points can be calculated different ways (linear, ladder, exponential, etc.) Most importantly, I believe in the long run, this mechanism would provide more (Weak+Weak) vs. (Strong) type of 2v1, and ensuring more healthy balanced tier groups so everyone can have fun. Because, ultimately, that’s what we’re here for, right?

Stay calm and walk away.

I always wanted this, Scepter last hit is a random teleport.

When the clone is generated, there is a 50% chance to swap position with the Mesmer (use the same code as SW#3 alternate action).

I feel it’s crazy enough that it just might work.

Link to the new Fractal update page. Please tell me what weapon that Mesmer is using?

I’m talking specifically this picture here .

Rifle confirmed?

Make sure you get the achievement with at least an max lvl 80 character.

The 5 or 6 WvW achievement chests (e.g. killing 450 invaders) are soulbound. It can only be opened by the character that got the achievement.

For me, it was my level 40 ele just running around and got a chest, but rewards are only lvl 30-40 masterwork and rares. Even though I have 4 other max 80 characters. This means any chance of exotic/ecto/dark drops are all gone.

This is a major disappointment, not only the rewards underwhelming (being on par with a 5-min champ bag farm), this further marginalizes and deters player diversity.

ANET, you must fix this to properly reflect rewards for an achievement that ALL my characters help to accomplish.

FA, so we meet again, prepare to die !

All the GS player, at least you still have an attack. Staff player often relied on enemy-player-enemy pattern to build conditions and get boons. Now it’s all gone, staff Mesmer build is kitten.

One of the biggest issue in WvW now is the lack of incentive to take on a challenge. People are always finding skirmishes where their forces are stronger or outnumber the enemy. Naturally, 2 servers will always team up and slice apart the weakest server. Most often it would be GREEN and BLUE taking pieces from RED, making it even harder for the weakest server to ever come back into the score race. Even more so now as ANET is getting ready to spread out server matchups more randomly.

Then, a solution came to me during a dream. Why not really integrate 2v1 as part of the game?

It’s quite simple. Every Keep/Tower/Camp that has not been taken will slowly build up one-time bonus points when captured.

For example, a Tower is 10 pts for tick and for every hour the tower has not been flipped, a one-time 10 pts bonus will be rewarded for the flipping team. If your team captures the tower, then an instant 10 pts is added to your total WvW score (an alternative would be to reward base 10 pts and the one-time bonus at the next score tick, so you can’t just cap and run).

The goal here is to make strong fortresses more and more attractive to capture as time passes. No more lock down borderlands, the stronger you are at any Keep/Tower/Camp, the more likely that place will be 2v1’ed by other two servers. I expect this change to also increase those epic moments of 3 zerg balls all running inside SMC while half the walls are down, or increase those surprise attacks on Garrison without a foothold in the map yet. More fun for everyone.

Numbers can be tweaked around. Like setting a maximum 3x the pts of the captured object (so 10 pts + at most 30 one-time pts in our example). Rate of bonus points can adjusted (so 5 bonus pts are added instead of 10 pts in our example). Personally, I like the exponential model. Still using our Tower example, 5 pts added after first 3 hrs, 10 pts added after next 2 hrs, and 15 pts added after next 1 hrs. Making a total of 30 one-time bonus pts for a tower not lost in 6 hrs. So your team would have received the equivalent in points as if you capture the Tower and ticked it 3 times. Keep roaming and capping in RED BL is good, but you can be 3 times effective taking something in the big-bad GREEN BL. This can also work for giving bonus WXP as well.

This change will achieve three goals: (1) greatly increase incentive to take on upgraded and guarded borderland, which leads to (2) more balance distribution for server forces to keep fights competitive, and most importantly (3) the losing server actually has a chance to catch up and win the match up if they play smart.

By creating more 2v1 scenarios across all maps, this can become an internal check to keep matchup balanced and fights dynamic. Do you guys think this can work?

MarkusParkus.8467:

As a GS + S/S Mesmer I mainly lose to Staff Mesmers! some great tips for both sides in this thread, thanks!

okay …

drongas.4189:

i mainly dont lose staff mesmer, they just dont have to much time stuck all condition, allways try go away. never atack mesmer under chaos armor, and just dodge dodge. if i summoned phantom, i just run aroud try avoid enemy spels. and let phantasm do they job.

O’really ~ guess there’s only one way to find out.

MarkusParkus vs. drongas . Duel…. FIGHT !

Thanks for the tips guys.

I guess my first post was a bit unclear. I do want to be very much in his face fighting, but the other Mesmer knows what I’m thinking and is preventing me to get close.

I’ve fought terrible mesmers that get carelessly burned or bled to death. But it seems at a n evenly matched skill, GS has the advantage. After 16s and two izerkers are up, it’s extremely difficult for me to close distance.

I feel a bit like what Rose Biddle said, just have to walk away from a knowledgeable GS Mesmer. I can nullify his shatters, I can read through his decoy, I can prolong the fight so my conditions can do their job. But so can he. I blink to close, he blinks to distance, i appear from stealth, he goes into stealth. If I can’t do the one thing I really want – to be up close, then the battle appears already half lost.

Bearlin.7238:

get up close and personal

That’s kind of the problem, with Staff being defense oriented, getting up and close plays against that. Also, GS#4 and #5 always set me back. So, like I said, by the time I do get close enough and conditions going, he is only a blink and GS#5 away from resetting the fight distance.

It seems to me one of my biggest weakness is facing another mesmer, either in sPvP or WvW.

I main Staff, and the pew pew from GS beam really hurts me, even with Chaos Armor. They keep at distance greater than 600 so I don’t get the additional bounce off Staff#1 , and my dmg output is halved. By the time I do get enough conditions going on the opponent to force him Blink/Heal/Stealth, I’ve already burned 1 or 2 of those utilities myself and HP lower than his.

So, Staff Mesmers, how do you counter and beat the GS pew pew?

What if I told you, the Stealth Trap is designed to nerf mesmer portals.

It’s live, it’s live … and I’m queue’ed, kitten =(

I don’t care if it was a planned effort, but the DB/FA 2v1 TC speed flip of all of TCBL map (except garry) in less than 45 mins just right now was an great offense. Hats off. We had to squeeze forces out of other maps to now reorganize TCBL.

We will get them back, and next time we’ll be quicker.

Aveneo.2068:

Still using 6xCentaur runes as this ‘more reliable swiftness’ turned out to be pretty unreliable. This is what was changed (2012-12-14):

Signet of Inspiration: Increased swiftness duration from five to ten seconds. This passive effect now works outside of combat.
Temporal Curtain: Increased swiftness duration to 12 seconds.

As pointed out by Aveneo, that was the update the Dec note mentioned. Signet of Inspiration is still very lacking, and mainly equipped if you are build for boon sharing. Focus has gotten a bit better, with traited Focus skill cooldown and some other boon duration increase, it has helped in wvw.

Still, Mesmers are the slowest class in wvw.

For reference, even at level 80, your clones do a meager 10-15 dmg. Clones serve two purpose (1) distract the enemy (2) used for shatter skill. They will not cause any real dmg themselves.

On the other hand, if you want to summon illusions for DPS, instead of clones use phantasm (the ghostly white ones). At low level I’d say start with Pistol Phantasm, good dmg, stay at range so it wont die, and looks cool.

My story, was in WvW, trying to hit a ranger from behind, he didn’t see me. He was out of combat and had speed boost, just out ran my staff #1 attack without even trying. Lowest point of my mesmer career.